By Meghnad Bose
Over the past few days, there have been thousands of words written about the impact that content creators on social media have on our society. Let me stay on that topic, but change the focus—from a cringe joke by Ranveer Allahbadia aka Beer Biceps on a comedy game show to toxic, hate speech targeting minorities by India’s politicians and far-right figures, each of them content creators in their own right.
On 11 February, an official of India’s Information & Broadcasting Ministry tweeted that the episode of India’s Got Latent “with obscene and perverse comments by Ranveer Allahbadia has been blocked following Government of India orders”.
Now, compare this with the following:
Less than 24 hours earlier, the India Hate Lab project of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) had published a report on hate speech in India in 2024. Part of the report dealt with assessing the effectiveness of Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube’s reporting tools in enforcing their self-professed community standards on violence and incitement.
This story was originally published in thequint.com. Read the full story here.